If there’s one word that definitely doesn’t describe me, it is “concise.” I am wordy, loquacious, gregarious, and fond of repetition. I tend to talk a lot. I got a website years ago precisely because even after spending all day talking to people, I still had more stuff that I wanted to say, and I needed a place to wallow in my own crapulent grandiosity. To put it another way: I am not into the whole brevity thing, man.
This is what I do for fun. I write around and around subjects, often, as regular readers may have noticed, without ever actually getting to a point. It’s a hobby of mine, and it’s something for which I wish I had more time. Still, since it’s all a massive lark, there’s no harm done. I think it was Larry Niven who once wrote, “If you have nothing to say, say it any way you like.” Done and done! Well, overdone, really. But this is what I do to relax. Work is a different matter.
Like most people, when I am at work I don’t have time to luxuriate in the rich variety of the English language, because generally people are coming to me with problems that need to be fixed in a timely fashion. Generally, all at once. It’s one of those high-pressure, get pulled in several directions at once, sorts of jobs. It’s not an important job, not in the slightest. It’s just a very, very hectic one.
I deal with people every day who tend to be very vague in their communications. I don’t blame them; they are undergoing trying circumstances. But, if something’s gone wrong, and you’re not sure what it is, it would be better for all involved if you just said that. I mean, literally said, “There’s something wrong–I don’t know what.” That would be a vast improvement over the page and a half of vague talking around that sometimes accompanies a request for help.
We all do it, I think. Or at least I do. When I take my car in to get fixed, for example, I can’t stop myself from spouting off an interminable monologue that doesn’t contain any more factual information than could be summed up in a single sentence: “It’s broken, and won’t go.” I do this because my deluded brain thinks that my long-winded, inexpert analysis is somehow helping. I do this even though the broken car in question is right there, sitting in front of the mechanic, and all I’m actually doing is stopping him from figuring out what the problem is by actually examining the thing that we’re talking about. And if you think that’s bad, you should see me a the doctor’s office. I have sometimes launched into lengthy, panicky speeches of no value other than the fact that they were beautifully content-free.
What’s interesting is that if you pay attention hard enough, you can spot these sorts of vague, entirely empty statements everywhere. In normal life, they are merely annoying. In business, they are frustrating wastes of precious, precious time. When cornered by someone who insists on being garrulously vague, you can’t help but think, “Dear god, I hope there’s a point somewhere in there.” And when it turns out there isn’t, it feels like something has been stolen from you.
That’s why I propose a new linguistic efficiency measure. Let’s boil this all these all of these futile diatribes into a single, easy word. That way, when we need to communicate with someone the fact that we don’t have any facts at all, we can save the time we ordinarily would have set aside for aimless burbling and re-purpose it for something more useful, like lunch. I suggest we use… “thingy.”
I thought about using “stuff,” but that’s already a useful word that I wouldn’t want to ruin, and anyway, it can also be used as a verb, which could be confusing. Well, more confusing. I also considered suggesting a kind of Tim Allen-esque grunt, but I think that’s trademarked, and I wouldn’t be able to respond to the resulting lawsuit with a straight face. Thingy, however is kind of a real word, but it’s mostly absurd, which is right in my wheelhouse.
Imagine the scene: When the copier repair person has arrives at your office, you can dispense with that whole rigamarole in which you attempt to describe what you think the problem is to an experienced, expert technician, who nods politely, all while not actually getting around to fixing the problem because he or she is too busy listening to you completely fail to describe it, using as many words as you possibly can. Instead, you can merely point at the offending piece of office equipment that needs his or her attention, and confidently shout, “Thingy!” Because the wordy description and the word “thingy” contain about the same amount of useful information, you see.
Think of the time you’ll save! (Which the repair person will still bill you for–sorry!)
